Attempts to facilitate power-assisted dental appliances to enhance dental hygiene go back to the 19th Century when, inter alia, Case et al. received U.S. Pat. No. 600,243 for an Angle Attachment for Dental Handpieces as used in the Dentist's office.
More recent developments in power-driven toothbrushes and like devices to implement dental hygiene include multiple-function brushes as taught by Manning, U.S. Pat. No. 5,640,735; Berne, U.S. Pat. No. 5,365,624; Woog, U.S. Pat. No. 5,071,348; Crawford et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,845,795 and Kudorko et al., U.S. Pat. No. 3,509,629, each of which use some form of power-drive. Computer assisted action is taught by Klinkhammer, U.S. Pat. No. 5,360,025; Loran et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,941,826 and Barrett, U.S. Pat. No. 4,478,580.
Furthermore, over the last thirty to forty years, a diverse array of manual and electric toothbrushes, oral irrigators and flossers have enjoyed widespread commercial success. This attests to the important basic need to clean the teeth, gums and whole mouth area: a need made recently more acute by the introduction of refined sugars in many commercial and home-prepared foods. The human organism (fortunately or unfortunately), evolves physically at a much slower rate than socially, and no biological mechanism yet exists to deal with this onslaught; hence the particular importance of such cleaning devices.
Nonetheless, many problems exist with these devices, and for many people and in many situations, they are inadequate or unsuitable. Manual brushes, for instance, require the user to have a moderate degree of manual dexterity (at least) and the ability to firmly grasp the brush while moving it against the dental surfaces. The tiresomeness, difficulty and repetitiveness of manual brushing leads many to do less than is necessary; as is reported in Consumer Reports, September 1992, page 611: "People tend to brush for less than a minute. You need two or three minutes of manual brushing to do the job right," and so some teeth and gum surfaces may receive inadequate brushing or be missed altogether.
Electric toothbrushes, while requiring less physical effort, still require human skill and dexterity to achieve effective results and can pose an electrical hazard. They are more complicated than manual brushes and require more time in maintenance. Brushing too vigorously with electric brushes can irritate the gums or cause them to bleed excessively, possibly injuring the gums or eventually causing them to recede. Furthermore, bleeding can spread oral bacteria to the bloodstream, a risk for users with various health conditions including heart and immunity problems. Because of these problems, children must often be supervised when using electric toothbrushes, and children under the age of ten probably should not use them at all.
Oral irrigators (pulsating jets of pressurized water) and oral syringes (non-pulsating jets of pressurized water), while of benefit to users with crowns, implants, braces, or non-removable bridgework (for whom flossing or brushing is impractical or not possible), are also ineffective if the water jet is not correctly directed to the area where most needed for oral irrigation and stimulation. This is particularly a problem for an unsuspecting adult, teen or child if there is no safety mechanism to prevent higher pressure settings from remaining after a particular user has finished with the tool.
Additionally, flossing needs only be mentioned to note that it has found its best use as a cumbersome and sometimes painful way to remedy some of the deficiencies found in the other methods, such as brushing, particularly when attempting to reach areas between the teeth.
However, the fact of the matter is, that U.S. Government statistics show that nearly 75% of the adult population suffers from gum disease, which in turn can lead to tooth loss. The primary cause of gum disease is inadequate gum brushing and massage. The conclusion is supported in part by the fact that dental professionals (dentists and hygienists) are rarely affected by gum disease and/or tooth loss. Interestingly, they use the same toothbrushes as used by the general population. The reason for this vast difference in oral health can only be attributed to the fact that dental professionals (as part of their training) are taught exactly how to brush teeth and gums and most importantly, they comply with these cleaning measures every day. The logical conclusion is that gum disease is caused by human error.
The major shortcoming of manual and electric toothbrushes, oral irrigators and flossing is that they are all dependent on accurate human manipulation in order to achieve effective disease preventing results. The high incidence of gum disease in the general population provides convincing evidence that all present means of tooth and gum brushing are inadequate simply because they all depend on human skill. The present invention eliminates all need for human skill. None of the prior means and methods were capable of simple and safe operation; hygienic, comfortable, effective and error-free use; easy and inexpensive maintenance; and a cost-effective purchase price, for most people in most situations. Thus, there is a need for an improved device and the present invention fills this need by overcoming all of the foregoing deficiencies.
The present invention is presented as a means to remedy all the above-mentioned defects of past devices with the provision of a hands-free individually programmed dental care device which provides a safe, fast, comfortable and effective means of dental care and substantially eliminate gum disease for people of all ages, including those with implants, crowns, braces and bridgework, as well as people of limited dexterity, or other handicaps.